Desperate Times
by Little Red Hood
Summary: Formally titled "Bitter Cure." Desperate to save her daughter's life and her own, Laurie finds a way to cure Michael of The Curse of Thorn. AU
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:** I want to say up front that I am not completely familiar with the original Halloween series. I've just recently watched the Rob Zombie remake. What I know about original Halloween I've learned through Wikipedia and Youtube. This story just came to me iat around 1:oo am after a night spent skimming through the archives and I had to get it out. So I apologize in advance for any OOCness, though Michael will be somewhat OOC since he's going to be "cured." Any comments or suggestions about the story are most welcome. I'll even take flames, so long as they're not too hot.

That being said, let's get on with it...

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the voices in my head. John Carpenter owns the rest.

**Bitter Cure**

When the chanting stopped, when the candles flared bright blue then snuffed themselves out, when the cold gust of wind blew through the room and ruffled her hair, Laurie knew the ritual was over. Michael still lay in the center of the pentagram where they had bound him. A soft pearly glow was slowly dissipating from his body.

"It is done," said the High Priest. He beat his staff against the ground one, two, three times, then made a gesture with his hands as if he were brushing away moths. "Thurisaz has left him. So mote it be."

"So mote it be."

Those formal words repeated by every Druid in the circle sent shivers down Laurie's spine. She really wasn't sure if she believed any of this shit, that her estranged brother suffered from an ancient curse which drove him to kill his family or that these white robed wackos really had the power to cure him. But she had reached the point where she was willing to try anything if it meant she didn't have to spend one night a year fleeing in terror from a crazed psycho with a knife. Besides, she had a daughter to worry about now.

Catching Michael had been an ordeal all by itself. Laurie had used herself as bait since she couldn't have lived with it if anyone else had died just for being in Michael's way. She had run screaming through the streets like a demented banshee with Michael in hot pursuit, his damned butcher knife held high. She'd half expected to feel the knife slashing into her back before she made it halfway to the abandoned warehouse where they'd set the trap. But she had made it and when she'd come bursting through the door with Michael hot on her heels, her new friends had been ready with their tranq guns. It had taken ten shots of elephant tranquilizer before Michael had finally collapsed. They'd had to pry the knife from his fingers. Laurie had stood nearby the whole time they were chaining him up, biting her nails and telling them to work fast. She knew from experience how tenacious her brother could be.

Now it was over. The Druids had done their thing, said their mumbo-jumbo, and blown smelly incense around. It was over and she could have her brother back sane and whole and without those pesky killing urges. Little Jamie wouldn't have to be scared of the Boogieman anymore.

Right?

"You may approach him. It is safe now," said the High Priest, motioning towards Michael.

_You really don't know him, do you?_ Laurie thought. _At least he's still chained up. I might have a ten second head start if I have to run for it._

Slowly, she walked towards the spot where Michael lay.

She got close enough to where she could see the rise and fall of his chest. Aside from that telltale sign of life he was motionless. They hadn't tried to take his mask off. It glowed eerily in the wan light of the few remaining candles. Every muscle in Laurie Strode's body was tensed to run as she stood over the prone body of Michael Myers.

His eyes snapped open and focused on her. She took a step back, overbalanced, and fell to her knees beside him. She had barely started scrabbling away from him when his mouth opened and a gurgling noise came from his throat.

It took a massive amount of effort to ignore the self-preservation instincts yammering at her to run. Her heart pounded in her chest as she leaned in closer, and heard Michael say in a small, weak, croak of a voice.

"Laurie?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

"Laurie?"

The girl in question literally stopped breathing when she heard him say her name. In all the times he'd chased her not once had he ever bothered to speak. His voice was almost nonexistent from disuse. She had to strain to even hear him.

"It....hurts..."

Laurie had to stop herself from blurting out _Good_. Even if he was bound, helpless, and possibly hurting she couldn't help but still hate him for everything he'd put her through and all the lives he'd destroyed. Whether or not it was all on account of some misguided cult's psychosis inducing curse, Hiding her anger, she asked, "What hurts, Michael?"

"It...hurts...to...talk..."

"Then don't." She sat back on her hands and knees, watching him carefully. If this was a trick, then it was a damn good one. He looked so harmless just laying there. He wasn't even struggling against his bonds, which was practically unheard of for him. Taking a deep, fortifying breath, Laurie called for one of the Druids to bring her the keys to unlock the chains.

I'm going to take the chains off you," she said, gritting her teeth, "and if you try to kill me I swear I'll stab you in both eyes this time."

She set to work unlocking the chains around his legs first. They were heavy chains, attached to iron rings bolted to the floor. Michael continued to lay still, nice and docile or maybe just doing a good job at pretending. Soon the last chain binding his legs snapped open and Laurie paused, took another deep breath, and moved on to the chains holding his chest and arms. It took about a minute to unlock them all. _Moment of truth_, she thought. _If he's faking then I've pretty much killed myself. And Jamie along with me._

When the last chain slipped off Michael sat up slowly, his eyes still locked on Laurie. With a hand that shook slightly he reached out to her, intending to touch her face, but stopped when she flinched away. She couldn't help it, not having survived this long without having developed outstanding fight-or-flight responses.

He inclined his head slightly at her reaction, then began fumbling with his mask. Very slowly he pulled it off, revealing what was underneath. When she got her first good look at his true face, Laurie was certain her jaw would unhinge itself and fall to the floor as if she were a character out of LooneyTunes. Words like _cherubic_ or _angelic _would be apt descriptors of the face she was staring at. The infamous Michael Myers had a plump, round face with angular cheekbones and thin lips. His skin was pale, not surprising since he wore a mask every waking moment, and his eyes were the same deep brown color as hers. Those eyes were big and bright and too childlike to rightfully belong on the face of a serial killer. If Laurie had met him on the street like this, she would've thought him cute.

He was trying to speak again. She leaned forward, as close as she dared.

"Can I go home now, Laurie?"

She didn't know whether he meant her home or their childhood home back in Illinois. Laurie wasn't too keen on bringing the terror of Haddonfield back to stay at her place but she was at a loss as to what else to do with him. Up until now, she hadn't even really believed that the cure would work. At least Jamie was safely out of town. And it was past midnight, which meant October 31st had come and gone.

He seemed to realize how hesitant she was. "if it makes you feel better, you can tie me up when we get there."

She stifled a giggle. It was just too good, coming from him. "Allright."

Laurie stood up, realizing as she did so that there wasn't a Druid in sight. She had been alone with him for the past five minutes and hadn't known it.

She extended a hand down to Michael, "Let's go."


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note**: Okay, I did some research and found out that the characters of Laurie and Jamie never actually knew each other in the original movie run. So consider this story to be very, VERY AU. I'd fit it in somewhere after the second movie. Oh, and in case anyone asks, I don't own Halloween or any of its characters.

**Chapter Three**

The car ride back to Laurie's house was spent mostly in stony silence. Laurie stared straight ahead at the dark road, refusing to even acknowledge the serial killer in the passenger seat beside her. Michael also kept quiet, looking in every direction but at his sister.

He'd tried to strike up a conversation only once. His voice was still weak, but he had managed to rasp out, "When did you move to California?"

Laurie's eyes never left the road as she answered, "When I heard that a certain relative had come out of his coma, I thought I'd be a good idea to get as far away from Haddonfield as possible."

Neither one had tried talkng after that. Michael stayed fascinated by whatever he could see outside his window and Laurie remained intensely focused on the road, her lips pursed together in a thin line.

Gravel began crunching under the tires as the car made its way up the long driveway to Laurie's house. The house was far enough away from the city to give her a decent amount of privacy. A copse of tall sycamore trees rose up behind its brick exterior. Laurie parked the car in the garage and got out. Michael emerged a second later and stood next to her.

Laure had one foot on the short staircse that led to her front door when she paused and looked back at her brother. Her eyes were narrowd and she was breathing a little too heavily.

"I can't believe I'm doing this."

"Doing what?", rasped Michael.

"Letting you into my house."

"I won't hurt you, " he mumbled. He kept his head bowed and his arms at his sides, trying to look as harmless as possible.

"Damn right, you won't," Laurie gritted her teeth as she slid the lock into the keyhole, giving the tiny piece of metal a rather violent twist. She wanted to hide the fact that her hands were shaking.

She pushed the door open and headed inside, not bothering to hold it open for her brother. The front door led into a cozy living area with a couch, two recliners, and a TV stand. A short hallway led off to the kitchen, and it was down this hallway that Laurie purposefully headed.

"God, I'm hungry," she grumbled as she opened the refrigerator.

"Me too," Michael said from behind her, causing her to jump. He'd followed her down the hallway as silently as ever. Damn his stalking skills. She scowled.

"Go clean yourself up first. There's a bathroom upstairs." Michael was filthy from having laid on the warehouse floor during the ritual. There were also brown stains on his clothes that Laurie thought looked disturbingly like blood.

"Um..." Michael tugged on the collar of his rumpled mechanics uniform, looking questioningly at his sister.

"I'll find you something to wear. Go." Laurie snapped at him and turned away, continuing to dig through the refrigerator.

When he'd left, Laurie pulled out a Ziplock bag full of sliced turkey and began making herself a sandwich. She'd found a jar of mayonnaise and had begun spreading the white goo over the bread when she looked down at the knife in her hand. It wasn't as big as a butcher knife and not very sharp. But still...

She threw open the drawers that held the silverware and began grabbing up knives, forks, anything that could be used to stab, slice, or maim. She threw it all into a plastic grocery bag and headed up the stairs to her bedroom. Checking to make sure Michael was still in the bathroom, Laurie slipped into her room, shutting the door behind her. She quickly made her way to her closet, where she took her bag of potential weapons and shoved it underneath a pile of blankets. If Michael wanted a knife, he'd have to laundry dive for it. This wasn't much of an advantage, but it made Laurie feel better.

She continued rummaging in the closet until she found a pair of jeans and a t-shirt that had belonged to Jamie's father. They would probably be too small on Michael but he would just have to deal with it.

When she came out of her bedroom, Michael was standing at the end of the hallway waiting for her. His hair was plastered wetly to his shoulders so she assumed he'd just taken a shower. He was still wearing the grimy mechanics uniform. She tossed him the new clothes without saying a word and headed back downstairs.

Five minutes later, Michael was back in the kitchen but Laurie was nowhere to be found. A plate bearing a plain turkey sandwich lay on the counter. Michael picked it up and sauntered into the living room, but Laurie wasn't there either.

He flopped down on the couch and began nibbling at his sandwich, trying not to think about how awkward this situation was. He knew his sister was still scared of him and was most likely purposefully avoiding him. Not that he really blamed her. After everything he'd put her through, he'd consider himself lucky if she didn't sneak a call to Sam Loomis, inform the shrink that she'd caught his missing patient, and laugh as she watched the whitecoats haul him back to Spring Grove.

After having eaten less than half of his sandwich, Michael began to get comfortable on the couch when his sister reappeared. To his dismay, she was holding a thick roll of duct tape. He was pretty sure he knew what she meant to do with it.

"You don't have to," His voice was soft, a little pleading.

"You said I could if it made me feel better,"

She had him there. He'd pretty much given her permission to tie him up before they'd left the warehouse. Michael gave a little sigh of resignation and laid back on the couch. Laurie began tearing off long strips of duct tape and winding them around his wrists and ankles.

"Are you going to gag me too?" Michael asked, his voice conveying a touch of sarcasm.

"I'm considering it." Laurie said as she finished wrapping his wrists. She noticed there were fine white scars crisscrossing both his wrists. Were they self-inflicted or from all the injuries he'd taken while chasing her?

When she'd finished, Laurie gazed down at her handiwork and couldn't prevent her lips from curving upwards in a satisfied smirk. How many girls had he tied up just like this before he'd killed them? And now here he was, bound, helpless, and at the mercy of the woman who had been straight up at the top of his hitlist. It was poetic justice at its finest.

"Goodnight, Michael,"

"Night, Laurie."

Laurie tried not to notice the sadness in his voice as she left the room.

In the kitchen, she poured herself a shot of Jack Daniels and drank it down in record time. Then she went upstairs to check that her stash of knives was still safe.

She doubted she'd get much sleep with a murderer in her house.

**End Note:** Laurie definitely has some major league trust issues to work out with her brother. It would've been way too unrealistic to have them glomping each other like normal happy siblings after so much badness has passed between them. Fear not, I think she'll start to warm up to him in later chapters.


	4. Chapter 4

Title: Bitter Cure

Fandom: Halloween

Disclaimer: I don't own Halloween. At the moment, it owns me.

**Chapter Four**

True to her prediction, Laurie didn't sleep well that night. Every time she would start to doze off, she'd imagine hearing the floorboards creak or rusty door hinges swinging open. Paranoia would really start to set in as she'd remember all the times she'd been chased around dark houses by that ghostly Shape with his bloody knife. At least three times she'd rushed downstairs with a knife in her own hand to make sure her brother wasn't up and roaming around. He'd been sleeping each time, his expression so angelic and peaceful she'd almost felt guilty for tying him up. Around 8:00 am a very groggy Laurie Strode managed to pull herself out of bed and immediately went downstairs to fix some much needed coffee.

Once the coffee was warming up, she went in to check on Michael. His eyes were open and he was rubbing his wrists together as if trying to free himself, "This is starting to itch," he grumbled.

"I'll be right back," Laurie headed back upstairs to rummage through her stash of sharp metal objects until she pulled out a pair of scissors. She then went back downstairs and began cutting through the duct tape around his wrists.

"How'd you sleep?" he aslked.

"Bad. You?"

"I slept pretty good for someone who'd lost almost all contact with their hands and feet." Once his hands were free, he'd begun rubbing life back into his tingling wrists.

It took Laurie a bit longer to saw through the duct tape binding his ankles. Evidently, she'd used more tape than was absolutely necessary. Once the last scrap of tape was peeled away she glanced up and accidentally locked eyes with her brother. His eyes were so full of wry amusement that she couldn't help but smile a little.

"Sorry."

"No, you're not." His lips quirked up in a half smile. "It's okay. I've slept in worse places."

"I bet you have." Laurie mumbled, sitting down on the couch next to him. She caught herself chewing on her lower lip, a nervous habit that she had tried unsuccessfully to get rid of. It was so strange seeing Michael like this, calm and talkative and not intent on killing everyone around him. There had been times in the past when she'd wondered what their lives would've been like if things had been different, if they'd all grown up together like normal siblings, but she'd pretty much given up on ever seeing her brother change. Now that he apparently had, she wasn't sure what to do.

"C'mon. I'll fix you something to eat," It seemed as good a place to start as any.

Twenty minutes later they were sitting at the kitchen table with plates of toast and eggs and coffee. Each one was quiet, lost in their own thoughts. Every now and then Michael would glance up and start to say something, but would almost immediately resume chomping through his pile of eggs. They had one brief verbal exchange when Michael took a sip of the murky black liquid in his mug and made a face.

"What is this?" He sloshed the liquid around in his mug, eyeing it as if it might be poison.

"It's cofee.

It's disgusting!"

"Want to try it with some sugar?"

"Hell, no!"

After Laurie had dumped the offending beverage and replaced it with a glass of orange juice, they once again lapsed into an uncomfortable silence. Laurie noticed Michael had finished his food almost as soon as he'd started eating it.

"How long's it been since you've had real food?" she asked. Her brother seemed terribly skinny for such a large man. Then she remembered where he'd been all this time.

"Ages. After you've been in a coma for six years, expect to wake up hungry." He shoveled the last bite in his mouth, then looked up at his sister. She was looking at him from across the table, her expression thoughtful.

He sighed. This wasn't going to be easy but he had to say it.

"Why did you do it?"

Laurie tensed visibly, "Do what?"

"End the curse."

"Isn't it obvious? I wanted my daughter and I to have normal lives, the kind where we don't have to worry about getting knifed to death in our sleep." Laurie said, egan chewing on her bottom lip.

"You went to a cult for help."

Laurie nodded, "They said that you'd been cursed since you were little and that it was responsible for everything you did. That it had been done to you against your will and that they had the power to free you."

Michael clenched his fists under the table so Laurie wouldn't see. As grateful as he was for being freed, he was not happy that his sister had fallen in with some mysterious pagan cult to do it. In his experience, nothing good ever came from associating with people in robes.

"And you believed them?"

Laurie rolled her eyes, "Of course not! But nothing else hurt you! You survived bullets, falling off a balcony, and that explosion in the hospital, all without so much as a scratch! So I figured, why not give magic a try?" She unfolded her hands and placed them flat on the table, "It looks like it worked."

Michael sighed, "Yeah, it did." He ran his left hand through his hair, noticing that it was badly in need of attention from a comb, "And I'm happy it did. But your friends didn't ask you for anything in exchange, did they?

"No, They said it was for 'the good of all'."

This apparently altruistic motivation did nothing to score points with Michael. He'd been enslaved and forced to hunt down and murder his own family for "the good of the tribe."

Michael noticed Laurie giving him a strange look. In a flash, he remembered how his other sister Judith once got a similar look on her face right after he'd taken her up on her dare of biting a live earthworm in half.

"You really were cursed?" Her voice was soft, wondering, That's why you killed people?"

Michael looked away, uncomfortable. Technically, he hadn't been the one in control when he had been slaughtering innocent people so he could claim that none of it was his fault. But sitting across from one of his intended victims, who also happened to be family, made it hard to repress the guilt, "Yeah."

"So that means magic...is really real?" Her voice was distant, as if she were trying to process something that was almost too much for her.

He nodded, "Some is. Unfortunately."

"Why? Who would do that to you?"

He shook his head, "It's a long story."

"Couldn't you...didn't you try fighting it?"

For once, Michael managed to meet Laurie's eyes without flinching, "Sister, if I hadn't been fighting it you wouldn't have survived the first time I met you."

Laurie shivered, causing Michael to mentally kick himself. _Idiot!_

"I have to go to work." she said, getting up and grabbing her purse off the back of the chair. "Will you still be here when I get back?"

"I don't have anywhere else to go."

***

_**End Note**_ : Ye gods, this chapter was a pain to write! It's so hard to visualize Michael and Laurie being nice to each other! I'm still not 100% happy with it. Oh. and I'm not bashing paganism. After all Michael's been through, it's natural for him to be suspicious of any cult, anywhere, whether it's pagan, Christian, or Scientology.


	5. Chapter 5

Title: Desperate Times

Fandom: Halloween

Disclaimer:

**Chapter Five**

"My daughter's coming home tomorrow."

Laurie made the announcement over a dinner of fried chicken and casserole. Michael had been devouring his chicken leg with his usual enthusiasm but paused in mid-bite to look up at his sister.

"Youf daufter?"

"Michael!"

His sister gave him her sternest Teacher's Look and Michael swallowed his mouthful of chicken, then wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. Laurie sighed. She'd been drilling him on table manners for the past week and making only limited progress.

The atmosphere between them was fractionally less tense now that a whole week had gone by with no murders, no explosions, and neither one trying to stab the other. The first morning Laurie had left her brother alone to go to her teaching job had been a vast strain on her already fraying nerves. She'd half expected to come home to a wrecked house strung up with yellow police tape, one or two chalk outlines marking the positions of dead bodies, and squadrons of cops waiting around to ask her questions. Michael, of course, would've already vanished into the mist and left her to clean up his mess. Instead, she'd come home to find Michael's long limbs draped over the couch, the TV remote firmly clutched in one of his large hands, and his eyes focused on the silly cartoon he'd been watching with an expression of childlike wonder on his face. He'd told her later that he hadn't been able to watch TV since he was six, seeing as how channel surfing wasn't considered a valid therapy at Smith's Grove. After that, Laurie had fought yet another massive internal battle between her common sense and conscience on whether to keep tying Michael up at night. Conscience had won out and she'd allowed him to move into the upstairs guest room.

"Jamie's coming here?" Michael couldn't keep the excitement out of his voice.

"Yeah," Laurie pushed a pile of carrots around on her plate for a moment, then came to a decision. Unclasping a heart shaped locket around her neck, she pulled out a tiny picture of a little girl with long auburn hair, a round face, and bright blue eyes. The child was wearing a pink sundress and hugging a stuffed teddy bear that was bigger than she was. "I don't know if you've ever seen what she looks like so..." She handed the picture to Michael.

Michael gave the photo of his niece such an intense examination that Laurie almost snatched it back. He seemed totally fascinated by the innocent little girl. "She's cute," he finally said, handing the picture back to Laurie.

"Let's get something straight," said Laurie, roughly pushing her plate aside and placing both elbows on the table. She clasped her hands together and fixed Michael with a fierce glare that he remembered seeing on several occasions. It had always been right before she'd done something extremely painful to him.

"I haven't told her anything about you. What you did, how many people you killed, nothing! She doesn't know any of that."

"Great!" said Michael, his excitement remaining undiminished. He wasn't afraid of his little sister. At least, not right now.

"So if you do anything to her, I will kick your ass out of this house, all the way back to Smith's Grove and beyond. Are we clear?"

"Completely!" he said cheerfully. Laurie could tell her brother was trying hard not to grin.

"You know I can take you if I have to," she said, lowering her voice to where it was almost a growl.

"Oh yes. I still have the scars from where you stabbed me with those knitting needles." Now the grin was definitely there, lopsidedand boyish. It smoothed out all the lines and scars on his face, making him look younger, almost innocent. It certainly made it harder for Laurie to keep threatening him, no matter how much she wanted to. _He certainly knows how to turn on the charm, the sly bastard._

"When will she be here?"

"I'm picking her up after work. She's been staying with some friends from out of town." Laurie picked up her plate and headed for the sink.

"What about her dad?"

"He's out of the picture." She kept her back turned towards him, not wanting her brother to see the sadness in her eyes. She could feel him watching her though and continued on, refusing to let him know how much this subject hurt, "It didn't work out. He wasn't....I wasn't...ready."

"Oh."

Michael brought his own plate over to the sink and stood next to his sister. She was once again refusing to look at him, which made him wonder if Laurie's failed relationship was indirectly his fault. _She had a very good reason to not want a family while I was still out there looking for her. I would've taken out anyone who got in my way. I wouldn't even be surprised if her getting pregnant had been an accident._

"I'm sorry."

She looked at him then, and Michael wasn't sure what to make of the look in her eyes.

"There's something I never thought I'd hear you say. Then again, I never thought I'd hear you say anything."

Michael laughed. Laurie smiled slightly and laid a hand on his shoulder.

"Just promise me you'll behave yourself around her!"

Michael grinned, thumping a fist against his chest. "I cross my heart."


End file.
